These new Ford Falcons make some serious HP!

Ah, good ol Ford of Australia!

I can just imagine the board room meetings.

Ford Ex 1: "Well mates, lets jip then yankees again."
Ford Ex 2: "Hey, I know, We can taunt them with an article in MT about the Falcon's and then never ship them over!"
Ford Ex 1: "Thats a great idea, I'll call the boys at MT right away."
Ford Ex 2: "Pass me a foster's will you?"

*All offense and mis-interpertations to our Austrialin members is intentional and you can feel free to insult my german/american heritage.

 

**** I would hate to have the bad cars then, because most Australians think that GM and Ford cars are crap!

I personally will never ever own an Aussie built Holden ... would not be seen dead in one (or though I have been in a Holden taxi), and there are not many Aussie built Fords I would want to touch either. The new Ford Terrority is okay in 2wd form ... but I am sure the driving experience would be a let down.

As for hp, yep Aussies are still stuck in the dark ages where the v8 rules and over the years they have made some pretty powerful v8 donkeys, with left sprung rear axles and rear drum brakes ...

They are pretty sophisiticated now, but the concept is still from the dark ages ... which I find amazing considering petrol is NOT cheap over here! Even the v8 Supercar race series is 20 years behind the times.

Give me a v6 Alfa Romeo any day, say a v6 75 (Milano in the States) and good bye Aussie crap on any decent road. Saying that I have yet to find many decent roads, they are all long straight boring things ...

A very good friend of mine has a Tickford Falcon as his company car, and I must say that thing has some go, but it only revs to something like 5000 rpm (although both my mate and I have accidentally gone a thousand or so over that and hit the limiter ) and this completely stuffs the acceleration. Thus the best way to drive it, infact the fastest way to, is to short shift and ride the torque curve ... hardly sporting. I do have to say that the steering is superb and IMO the best feature of the car. Handling wise I'm not sure, but I think it is a case of puting very wide tyres on a car to give it grip, and not good suspension design ...

Thus in conclusion I have to say that I rate GM and Ford like this:
GM - American or from anyway (ie. Vauxhall and Holden) utter crap, except for a 60's split rear window Corvette and the Camaro. Would not touch anything else.
Ford - American Ford and Aussie Ford, crap with two exceptions, ie. 60's Mustang and MkIV GT40. English Ford, some great cars like the Escort, Sierra Cosworth, GT40 ...

Pete

 

intersting, motortrend (I think that was the magazine) was virtually writing a penthouse letter about the Falcon XR6 Turbo in terms of build quality, speed, handling and quality of materials. At least compared to the horrible offerings here. I mean there IS a reason why no Ford sells at MSRP in the United States after all.

 

TO ALL MY AMERICAN PATRIOTS, DO NOT FRET, WE STILL HAVE THE TAURUS.

 

I have not driven the Turbo but have the standard current Falcon. While it is a considerable improvement on earlier models there was nothing that made me go ... holy **** this is a great car. The ride, handling and power were all okay but it was raining so I was unable to push the limits. It did wheel spin easily away from the lights ... which was fun!

The build quality inside the car means lots of plastic, while okay'ly done I would like to see one in 5 years time to see how it lasts.

The feature I thought I would like was the automatic gearbox with a manual selection mode ... disappointing to me anyway. When you use the manual mode a change takes about 1 second from when you move the lever until when it occurs ... hardly makes it feel manual.

I imagine the Turbo model would have considerable SOUL and thus might be interesting ... ??

Pete

 

If they had a choice, the majority would go for European cars like Merc, BMW, Audi, etc; however they simply can't afford them. Here we have things called "luxury tax" (because noone would buy Australian crap if European stuff was cheap), large import duties and 47% personal income taxes (gotta keep 'em down)... All so it can go on our crappy welfare system to support morons who contribute nothing to society. Unlike in the US, people can sit on their asses collecting welfare almost permanently and not bother getting a job.

Anyway, I've never owned an Australian, Asian or American car. The last Australian car 'we' (my dad) had was a Ford Falcon station wagon back in the late 1980's, which was quickly replaced by a new Volvo.

 

Yasmin,

Hmmm yes good point about Alfa Romeos. Lets face it you have to be a bit different and maybe like beating yourself up to buy an Alfa Romeo ... thus comparing sales to Alfa Romeo is not fair. I constantly amazed that Alfa Romeo are still alive, but love mine none-the-less

Fact is if the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon were NOT made in Australia and say made in Japan ... would Australian's still buy them. I think not! What do you think?

A good friend of mine was looking for a company car and he ended up with a Tickford Ford Falcon. One of the reasons was that there is still a perceived costs/snobbiness around european cars and most are accepting of the Aussie cars ... he would have bought a Peugoet otherwise.

Thus if we remove the:
1. I'll only ever buy an Australian car one-eyed buyers (bit like Alfa fans ), and
2. The company car deals ... promoting jobs in Australia.

How many people actually would by a Holden Commodore or Ford Falcon on the models merit?

(Note: I am only talking about the Commodore and Falcon because most other models are simply rebadged English or whatever stuff ... except the new Territory)

Pete

 

There are two words an Alfa Romeo driver fears like no others:




Resale Value

 

Pete,
fair point ....

 

I too could never figure that out, However the GTP is marketed at a bigger yuppie type crowd, and not somthing small and more defined like Ferrari. However the GTP is still plenty fast though. I like the way the Grand Prix's handle.